Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/194

180, would be called poverty and rudeness, by their German, French, and English descendants?—What was it that changed the intellectual and moral character of these people, after ages of ignorance and ferocity? It was the art of printing. But, alas, with the introduction of printing, modern slavery was introduced! While commerce has carried books and maps to other portions of the globe, she has sent kidnappers, with guns and cutlasses into Africa. We have not preached the Gospel of peace to her princes; we have incited them to make war upon each other, to fill our markets with slaves. While knowledge, like a mighty pillar of fire, has guided the European nations still onward, and onward, a dark cloud has settled more and more gloomily over benighted Africa. The lessons of time, the experience of ages, from which we have learned so much, are entirely lost to this vast continent.

I have heard it asserted that the Indians were evidently superior to the negroes, because it was impossible to enslave them. Our slave laws prove that there are some exceptions to this remark; and it must be remembered that the Indians have been fairly met in battle, contending with but one nation at a time; while the whole world have combined against the Africans—sending emissaries to lurk for them in secret places, or steal them at midnight from their homes. The Indian will seek freedom in the arms of death—and so will the negro. By thousands and thousands, these poor people have died for freedom. They have stabbed themselves for freedom—jumped into the waves for freedom—starved for freedom—fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot—and their tyrants have been their historians! When the Africans have writers of their own, we shall hear their efforts for liberty called by the true title of heroism in a glorious cause. We are told in the fable that a lion, looking at the picture of one of his own species, conquered and trampled on by man, calmly said, "We lions have no painters."

I shall be told that in the preceding examples I have shown only the bright side of the picture. I readily